


a good soldier

by cursingcursive (queenradi)



Series: a good soldier [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post CA:TWS, bucky's remembering, post AOU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 20:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4151070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenradi/pseuds/cursingcursive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s a soldier. It’s an inescapable fate; he fights a war and then he starts a war and then he is a war, and every time he is a soldier. This is one of the only things he knows. </p><p>He’s a soldier, and he will do as he’s ordered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a good soldier

**Author's Note:**

> i was up until 2:30 in the morning writing this because i was thinking about bucky in his recovery and it would not leave me alone. so here we are. special thanks to my love [MissyRain](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MissyRain) for encouraging me to explore the dark world of steve x bucky shipping

He’s a soldier. It’s an inescapable fate; he fights a war and then he starts a war and then he _is_ a war, and every time he is a soldier. This is one of the only things he knows.

He’s a soldier, and he will do as he’s ordered.

 

+

 

A good soldier will never hesitate to pull the trigger or throw a punch or push a big, red button or say “Sir yes sir!” And he is nothing if not a good soldier.

So why, when he’s standing in the middle of wreckage and screaming and bullets and blood, is he not doing any of that? Why is he standing there, why isn’t he moving, why isn’t he obeying orders?

Why is the Mission looking at him like he isn’t a monster, like he’s something he _knows_? Why is he, the soldier, saying something that isn’t “Yes, sir”?

And why…

Why does he know who Bucky is?

(He doesn’t, not really, but the Mission does and somehow, that is more important than any trigger he might have to pull.)

 

+

 

A bad soldier reports back with an incomplete mission.

A _terrible_ soldier abandons that mission.

And right now, he is a _terrible_ soldier.

The Mission is heavy with water and lack of consciousness. He doesn’t feel it— the metal arm has always been more than enough for anything. It was more than enough when he jumped into the river, and more than enough when he pulled them both out.

He leaves the Mission on the shore and walks away feeling empty. He’s used to that; emptiness. Except, this time, it isn’t because he’s truly empty. It isn’t because he’s been filtered out and wiped clean and desensitized. It’s because, for a brief, earth-shattering moment, he’d been full. And now he knows exactly what’s left him empty.

He knows that the Mission is more than a mission, and he knows that he’s felt the ache in his chest before. He doesn’t quite remember when.

 

+

 

He knows, now, that he was a soldier named James Buchanan Barnes.

He knows that the Mission was a soldier named Steve Rogers.

He wonders if he was a good soldier, back then.

 

+

 

(He couldn’t have been a good soldier, because as the months slip away and he wakes up and he _learns_ , he knows that somehow, he became a monster.)

 

+

 

He’s cold.

Frost has made a home in the grooves of the metal arm. His flesh arm is almost numb, which might be a blessing because there’s a bullet lodged in it, near the shoulder. Every exhale sends a puff of breath into the air. He would shiver, but every muscle in his body has seized up in an effort to keep warm (it’s not working).

A final gunshot echoes through the forest. He narrows his eyes to see in the surrounding white, can barely make out red and gold and blue and silver and green, all huddled in one clearing. Blood streaks the snow. Bodies lay like fallen trees, broken and worthless. It’s the first time in a long time that he hasn’t contributed to the carnage, only observed.

It might be the first time in ever.

He watches the small red head walk up to the big green thing and then he frowns when the big green thing is a man. He doesn’t pretend to understand; he’s not here for that.

He’s here for the Mission.

He’s here to change it.

 

+

 

He knows that a good soldier must do what is necessary to survive, and he knows that this is necessary.

Not a single part of him hesitates to fire off one, two, three bullets. All of them lodge themselves in the throats of the dark agents racing towards him. Two more bullets smack into two more foreheads with dull cracks. He jerks back around the corner and knocks the empty magazine out of the gun, slams a new one back in and fires all of the rounds without blinking.

When it’s over he crushes the gun in the metal hand and sits in a pool of blood he spilled and hangs his head. An eagle is stitched onto the shoulder of one of the agents. He touches the badge with his flesh hand, and then does something no good soldier is ever allowed to do.

He cries.

 

+

 

Exhaustion makes him clumsy.

He doesn’t remember ever being exhausted. He doesn’t doubt that he has been, but… He doesn’t remember, because everything he does remember has been fuelled by an undying rage.

That rage is dead, slaughtered by a hollow point round and a salted tear that landed on a blood stain. He’s empty, again, and his feet trip over themselves when he stumbles into an alley that might be familiar, if he wasn’t so monstrous.

He collapses against the damp alley wall. His knee cracks painfully and his metal arm makes a screeching noise when it drags against the bricks. He doesn’t care; not when his bones feel bruised from the inside out and he can suddenly remember exactly what that pulse in his head is called (migraine).

A yellow car rumbles past the alley. It kicks up a wave of puddles as it goes, and he wonders, if he were closer, what the muddy water would feel like on his wary skin.

The sounds of the city lull him to sleep.

(They should be familiar; he almost recognizes them.)

 

+

 

He wakes up and is almost surprised to see that a dog has curled up in his lap. The dog isn’t small, but not large, and half of his left ear has been torn away. He’s grey and ratty and skinny, but when he opens his eyes and lifts his head, he leans in and licks the soldier right on the nose.

The soldier pets his head and whispers, voice cracking and scraping his throat, “Kazimir.”

The dog sniffs at the metal arm once, twice, three times, and then rests his head back on the soldier’s knee.

The soldier’s dry lips crack and split when he smiles, small and carefully, like he might lose the only thing he remembers ever gaining.

 

+

 

He goes back to the museum, but avoids the exhibit he visited before. Instead, he walks through the World War II exhibit, with purpose, and finds the small corner decorated with old photos of dogs and their soldiers.

A good soldier, he learns, does not always need to understand that they are fighting.

 

+

 

Kazimir follows him everywhere. They cross the city together and sleep in a heap together and toe the very edges of _that tower_ together.

The soldier grows accustomed to company, as long as it is four legged and mostly silent.

 

+

 

Company has lowered his guard, it seems.

He’s watching Kazimir chase geese in the park when he sees, from the corner of his eye, a black uniform. It’s lurking behind a car in the parking lot, and in the split second he sees it, he also sees the unmistakable motion of a gun being loaded.

Something crashes into the back of his head. He twists violently, metal and flesh arm alike flailing to grab the body that has wrestled him to the ground, but a needle is jammed into his neck and he yells.

He can hear barking and he knows that he has given up in the most unforgivable of ways.

He wonders if Kazimir is still chasing the geese.

 

+

 

_“That man on the bridge… Who was he?”_

_“You met him earlier this week on another assignment.”_

_“I knew him…”_

_“… But I knew him…”_

 

+

 

There’s a white light. He knows that, once upon a time, that saying meant something.

 

+

 

The soldier is awake, even though he really doesn’t want to be.

“We found him in Central goddamn Park, of all places.”

“What was he doing?”

“Nothing… Just sitting. He looked almost… I don’t know, peaceful.”

“So you tackled him to the ground and jammed a damn needle into his neck?”

“The guy’s a trained assassin with a metal arm and no instinct except to kill.”

“Sounds like you, just without the arm.”

Those voices are familiar. So much more is, lately.

“He’s safe now, isn’t that what you wanted?”

The soldier can feel himself slipping away. His blood is warm.

“Yeah. It is.”

 

+

 

A nurse with kind eyes and soft hands comes in and brushes his hair from his forehead. She smiles at him and asks how he’s feeling. He doesn’t answer. She keeps smiling and brushes her soft hands over his flesh wrist.

He can feel the cuff that loops over him, there. He doesn’t tug; his bones feel like lead, and even though he could throw a car a fair distance, he can’t find the strength to move.

“We can take these off soon, don’t worry,” the nurse tells him.

“Why?” It’s a whisper and his throat hurts when he says it.

Her smile is sad. “It’s for everyone’s safety.”

“No.” He closes his eyes. The light was starting to hurt them. “Why take them off?”

The soft hands comb through his hair again. “Because some of us believe in the good you have left.”

He wonders who “us” is.

 

+

 

She comes back later, after he’s gotten a good look at the room. Some part of him knows it’s a hospital room. The bed, the monitors surrounding it. The door that’s probably locked. The big window that’s a mirror to him but just glass to someone on the other side.

The cuffs on his wrists are strong, but not something that’ll keep him down, should he try and fight. He doesn’t know who could possibly put that much faith in him.

The nurse wheels a cart into the room and smiles at him. “Good morning,” she says gently. She pushes a button and the bed rises into a sitting position. “Are you hungry?” The cart bears a single plate of food: two pieces of toast, two sunnyside up eggs, and greasy hashbrowns.

He knows what that exact meal tastes like.

No, it’s not a “know”…

It’s a “remember”.

“I can uncuff you so you can eat,” the nurse says. She’s standing patiently, and she looks him in the eye when she speaks. “If you’d like.”

He looks to the mirror that’s a window. She looks, too, and understands.

“There are some people watching on the other side, yes,” she says, “but they won’t come in unless I need them to.”

“If I do something,” he corrects. His voice is quiet and gravelly.

“Well… Yes.” Her hand touches the cuff on the flesh wrist. “Do you want me to?”

He looks at the food, remembers that it’s his favorite breakfast. “Yes, please.”

He knows a good soldier is always polite to those that save his life.

 

+

 

“What happened to the dog?” he asks, when the nurse (her name is Alice) has cleared away the food and is rebuckling the cuffs.

“The dog?” she’s confused.

His heart thuds loudly. “The… The dog…” He swallows thickly. His metal hand clenches into a fist. “The one at the park.” His chest is shaking when he breathes.

“I didn’t hear anything about a dog.” Alice moves to buckle the metal arm. “I’m sorry.” She notices the fist. Her hands stop.

He can’t breathe, not really. He’s shaking. “The dog,” he gasps, “I need to know what… What happened, to the dog.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Tell me!”

“I—”

He tips his head back and wails — he knows what a snapping spine feels like beneath his hands, and that feeling is resonating in his chest, in his ears, in the back of his throat. “TELL ME!”

Alice presses her palm to his sweaty forehead. His eyes are closed and he’s sobbing. The metal hand is gripping the side of the bed and the crack of plastic beneath it is loud.

“I need you to calm down,” Alice says gently. He doesn’t hear, not over his cries of “Kazimir” and “tell me!” Alice tries to pin his shoulders, and then she says sharply, “Bucky, I need you to take a deep breath—”

Red shatters his vision and he jerks upright and _screams_.

 

+

 

_“Who the hell is ‘Bucky’?”_

 

+

 

“We found the dog.”

“Where?”

“It was sleeping outside, back in the alley with the dumpsters.”

“How do you know it’s the same one?”

“Sam looked at the footage we recorded when I took him down. It’s the same dog that was chasing the geese.”

“Thank you.”

“His name is Kazimir.” A pause that almost wakes him up. “It means ‘keeper or destroyer of peace’.”

The red he sees this time is more welcoming.

 

+

 

_“People are gonna die, Buck.”_

 

+

 

He has a new nurse. She doesn’t smile.

“What happened to Alice?” His voice is small. He’s scared to move.

The nurse gives him a sharp look. She fiddles with one of the monitors. “Broken jaw.”

 

+

 

“Any progress?”

“The nurse called him Bucky yesterday and he didn’t freak out.”

“Rogers, if that’s your idea of ‘progress’ then you might be in dire need of a wake up call.”

“Thanks, Fury. Real uplifting.”

“Just doing my job.”

“We’re bringing the dog in tomorrow.”

“Purpose?”

“A friendly face that won’t accidentally offend.”

 

+

 

Kazimir jumps onto the bed and shoves his wet nose under Bucky’s chin. His fur is soft and no longer patchy, and he smells clean.

The nurse smiles when the soldier smiles.

 

+

 

The cuffs are gone, and he’s allowed to walk around. His muscles are sore and his mind is full of fuzz and static, but every morning he paces the room until they let Kazimir in. For an hour, he sits on the bed and pets the dog, and when the dog leaves he sits in the corner and bites his thumbnail.

The only reason no one stops him from doing so, he thinks, is because he bites the metal thumb.

 

+

 

One morning, the nurse opens the door for Kazimir, and he comes in attached to a leash and a man in scrubs. They both linger in the doorway, waiting.

“Would you like to go on a walk, Bucky?” the nurse asks. Her name, he just learned, is Mary.

The soldier slowly walks over to the man and Kazimir. He takes the leash and watches his flesh hand shake. His knees are weak. The backs of his eyes burn. He nods.

The three of them move slowly down the stark white hallway, Kazimir leading the way with his tail high and the leash pulled taut between him and the soldier. It’s freeing, being able to walk around an area that isn’t as constricting.

They reach a door that swings open before anybody touches it. The soldier freezes. Kazimir is forced to stop and he whines.

He… can see _outside_. There’s grass and a sky and an honest to God _breeze_ and soldiers are supposed to be anything but weak but he’s _crying_ at how close freedom is.

Kazimir pulls him outside. He makes it three steps into the world before he drops the leash and collapses on the grass.

He’d spent almost two years out in this world, but this… this feels new.

He feels new.

 

+

 

He takes three little, blue pills with every meal, now. Mary says they’re to help his mind.

 

+

 

Shots are pushed under the skin of his temple every two hours. Mary says they’re to help his mind.

 

+

 

An IV is pumping into his blood every night. Mary says it’s to help his mind.

 

+

 

Kazimir sleeps and eats in his room. Mary says it’s to help his soul.

 

+

 

“What’s your name?”

The soldier blinks. His eyes water and burn.

“Do you know your name?”

The soldier looks away. His throat is aching.

“Tell me what your name is.”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath. His hands tremble. “Bucky…”

He closes his eyes and bites his bottom lip. “Bucky Barnes.” A headache rips open the tender wound in his mind.

“Very good…” Mary touches his forehead and hands him a glass of water. “Can you give me your full name?”

He downs the whole glass and sighs. He meets Mary’s eyes. “James… Buchanan… Barnes…”

She smiles. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Barnes.”

 

+

 

“I want to see him.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Please—”

“Not yet.”

“Banner—”

“We have no idea what exactly they did to him. The treatment is only just starting to work. Wait a little longer.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You’re going to have to.”

 

+

 

More blue pills. More shots. More IVs.

_Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes…_

_Bucky?_

_People are gonna die, Buck…_

 

+

 

He wakes up one morning to a TV in his room. Mary hands him the remote. “Go wild,” she says, smiling.

He finds a news station, first. He changes it instantly, and lands on a cartoon. Kazimir cuddles underneath his metal arm and he watches cartoons for hours.

 

+

 

One night, he watches the news for real, and the anchor says “Captain America”.

He doesn’t know why he smiles as widely as he does. They don’t even show a picture of this “captain”, but Bucky knows kind blue eyes when he hears them.

 

+

 

The door to his room opens and he expects to see Mary, but it’s Alice. She stands there for a moment, waiting. Bucky can’t move. His heart thunders in his chest.

“Hello, Bucky,” she says. Her eyes are shining.

He leaves the bed in a tangled mess of sweatpants and blankets and Kazimir, and crosses the room to hug her. He’s hyperaware of his metal arm and the strength he always knew he had. He hugs her carefully, but she hugs back fiercely.

“I hear you’re doing better.”

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you thank you thank you.” Then, quieter, “I’m sorry.”

She cradles his face. “That’s why we’re here. To bring you back.”

 

+

 

Mary asks him if he wants to draw, to sort out his feelings. He frowns and says, “I don’t draw. Steve’s the one that does that.”

Her eyes go wide and her jaw drops. “I—”

“Right?” Bucky panics for a moment. Did he not do it right? Did he not say the right thing, did he do something he wasn’t supposed to? “Steve, right? He draws, all the time. When, when we have nothing to do and it’s sunny out, we sit on the fire escape, and… and he draws…” Bucky frowns and looks down at his hands. “I’m sorry.”

A tear lands on his metal arm. “I _know_ Steve draws,” he whispers.

 

+

 

He comes back to his room after walking Kazimir and there’s a folded up piece of paper on his pillow. He opens it and his knees give out beneath him.

It’s a drawing of Kazimir, in a style he recognizes more than his own heartbeat.

“Steve,” he says. It’s almost a question.

Then red flashes over his vision and the metal hand clenches the drawing into a ball.

 

+

 

A redheaded woman in black clothing is waiting for him when he lets Kazimir outside, a week later.

“Barnes,” she says flatly. Her arms are crossed and she’s adopted a defensive stance.

“Do I…” He rethinks his sentence. “Am I supposed to know you?”

She smiles. It’s dangerous. “No.” She steps closer. He doesn’t move away, even though he thinks he should want to. “Do you want to? Because I’m like you, and I hear that birds of a feather flock together.”

He watches Kazimir rub up against the woman’s legs and beg to be petted. “Okay,” he says carefully.

“Wonderful.” The woman scratches Kazimir’s ears with one hand and extends the other to him. “Natasha Romanoff.”

He takes the hand. “Bucky… Barnes…” The name doesn’t quite work in his mouth, but it works in his mind, and that’ll have to do, for now.

 

+

 

Natasha tells him about everything that happened after World War II. She stops once she gets to ten years ago, and he wants to ask why.

 

+

 

_“Didn’t you use to be smaller?”_

+

 

The crumpled drawing of Kazimir has been smoothed out and pinned to the wall above Bucky’s bed. Before he goes to sleep, after he’s taken the pills and the shot and the IV’s been pushed into his bloodstream, he looks at the drawing and imagines ( _remembers_ ) the hands that drew it. They’re small and bony and sometimes they shake. He knows they’re cold and soft.

 

+

 

Natasha visits often. Sometimes she’s gone for a week, and she comes back with bruises and scratches. He always runs careful fingertips over the marks and asks where they came from. She just shakes her head and says, “a long day of saving the world, I guess.”

Other times, she brings more drawings. She always says the same thing: “He wants you to remember this part.”

Bucky pins them all up and thinks he can remember most of it.

 

+

 

_“Let’s hear it for Captain America!”_

+

 

_“You’re keeping the uniform, right?”_

+

 

“World War II!” he shouts. Kazimir’s head whips around at the noise. Bucky doesn’t notice. He stands in the middle of the yard, tennis ball for Kazimir in hand, eyes wide and grin splitting his face.

“What about it?” Mary asks. She looks cautious.

Bucky runs his flesh hand through his hair. “I was in it,” he says slowly, “and I remember it.” The grin falls. “It…”

“Wasn’t great?” Mary finishes. “No. But you remember. That’s good.”

“Yeah…” He throws the ball. Kazimir bolts after it. “Good.”

 

+

 

_“No! Not without you!”_

+

 

One of the drawings that Natasha brings is of Bucky. Only, his hair is short and he has two flesh arms. And he’s wearing a uniform.

She doesn’t say “he want you to remember this part.” She says, “He wants you to remember him.”

 

+

 

He sits at the edge of the yard, which he learned a long time ago was high up on a building in New York, and watches the sun set. He remembers a different sunset on a different skyline in a different century in the same city. Tears drip over his cheeks, but he doesn’t reach to wipe them away.

 

+

 

He remembers rain and black and a funeral and—

 

+

 

_“I’m with you—_

_till the end—_

_of the line—”_

 

+

 

He remembers a fair… or a festival… or an expo… and he remembers concern blooming in his chest and an ache in his heart and—

 

+

 

_“Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”_

_“How can I when you’re taking all of the stupid with you?”_

 

+

 

He remembers cold and dizzying heights and a rattling train and—

 

+

 

_“BUCKY!”_

 

+

 

He sits on his bed and remembers what makes him sob at night. He’s looking right at the mirror that’s a window and he knows someone is looking right back.

“Till the end of the line,” he whispers. He blinks slowly and a tear trembles on his eyelashes.

 

+

 

He’s a soldier. It’s an inescapable fate; he fights a war and then he starts a war and then he _is_ a war, and every time he is a soldier. This is one of the only things he knows.

He’s a soldier, and he will do as he’s ordered.

Except…

Now he’s a man, and when Mary and Alice and Natasha and a man named Sam and another man named Bruce tell him to go into the hallway, he does.

Not because it’s an order.

But because he knows what’s waiting for him, outside of the hospital room.

 

+

 

_“Who the hell is Bucky?”_

+

 

He knows, now, that he was a soldier named James Buchanan Barnes.

He knows, now, that he is a man named Bucky Barnes.

 

+

 

_“With you—_

+

 

A car is waiting for him outside of the hospital. Natasha and Sam ride with him in it, to the tower he and Kazimir had skirted for so long, so long ago.

 

+

 

_— till the end—_

+

 

The lobby of the tower is empty. Natasha and Sam lead him into an elevator. His heart is racing and he can’t breathe properly. His hands — both of them — are shaking.

 

+

 

_— of —_

+

 

The doors slide open. He doesn’t remember, but he recognizes. Tony Stark. Clint Barton. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff.

Heroes.

He shakes their hands and introduces himself. Stark wants to touch the arm. Barton wants to talk about Kazimir. Wanda touches his forehead and Pietro touches his wrist and Bucky almost cries.

 

+

 

_— the —_

+

 

Natasha directs him to another door. She holds his metal hand in hers and keeps him from moving. He doesn’t breathe. No one in the room does.

Steve steps out of the doorway.

 

+

 

_— line.”_

+

 

“Bucky Barnes?”

Bucky is _fucking shaking_. “Y-yes…”

Steve’s smile _fucking burns._ “Steve Rogers.” He holds out his hand. He’s two feet away. “Nice to meet—”

Bucky wrenches free from Natasha and _fucking collapses_ in Steve’s arms. “I _fucking remember you_ , you punk,” he growls. He’s crying.

Steve hugs him like there’s something still keeping them apart. “Thank you,” he whispers. He’s crying, too.

 

+

 

_“I knew him.”_

 


End file.
